June 2008 - Horrorphile

Horrorphile

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Vimu Subscription

Horrorphile - June 2008

Basket Case

June 30th 2008 06:06

There’s dreadful, and then there’s real bad. There’s the cheap and nasty, and then there’s the deep trash. Frank Henelotter’s cult “classic” Basket Case (1982) is a movie unto itself. Exploitation horror pushed beyond the realms of good taste into a dark alley of unadulterated rubbish. It is done with such glee and conviction you can’t help but watch the movie slide across the floor leaving a slimy trail of God knows what.

Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) arrives in Manhattan with a wad of cash and a big wicker basket. He immediately finds the cheapest hotel on the lower blocks. Inside his basket is Belial, his Siamese twin removed when he was an adolescent, now a very hungry, very twisted and very mad little freakazoid. Duane, with the help of Belial, has an agenda of revenge against the surgeons who dumped his brother in the garbage. Yes, Basket Case is full of ripe irony.

Kevin Van Hentenryck is Duane

I remember seeing Basket Case on VHS at some point during the 80s, and it was memorably bad. Watching it again after all these years, it’s as bad as I remember, and worse still. Director Henenlotter must have taught himself how to direct, because he breaks more rules of cinema narrative than you can throw a stick at. But to be brutally honest, everything about Basket Case is low rent. The acting is dire, the production values bottom of the barrel, the special effects are, well, to call them “special” would only be hinting at the movie’s demented intent. But curiously the special effects were created by John Caglione Jr, who'd go on to a illustrious Hollywood career.

Diana Brown as Dr. Cutter

But it is because Basket Case is so outrageously bad that it transcends its limitations and smugly resides in that rare league known as deep trash: movies that are irredeemably trashy, but make no stake on trying to be anything more than what they are. The saying “So bad they’re good” suggests something akin to the deformed freak that is Basket Case. If you've seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978) you'll get my drift.

Another of Belial's victims

When Basket Case was first released the distributor cut all the blood and gore in a botched attempt at trying to sell it more as a comedy. It got ignored, until a reviewer Joe Bobby Briggs championed it (he’d seen the uncut version at a festival), and the distributor surreptitiously re-edited the violence back into the existing prints. The movie went on to a very popular run on the midnight movie circuit and drive-ins.

Of course the movie isn’t really that violent, not in any realistic way, but it does have a rather unpleasant scene of violation where Belial, the murderous mutant twin of Duane, forces himself (or to be more precise; itself) upon sleeping Sharon (Terri Susan Smith), Duane’s love interest (complete with dirty blonde wig), until Duane prises the grinding mound off her lifeless body. Belial is one dangerous piece of rubber, er, flesh.

Duane and Belial have a poignant fraternal moment

Director Henenlotter adds some hilarious sound effects in places, especially the flashback surgery scene when Belial and Duane are separated. There's also numerous - and very obvious - scenes where all the dialogue has been post-synch. But of course this only adds sweet mustard to the hot dog. Henelotter also throws in some claymation sequences to show Belial rummaging around the hotel room hell-bent on destruction. Then it’s back to the rubber puppet. Belial is one of cinema’s rare villain treats. He’s so small he can hide in the toilet. And when he gets really, really angry, his eyes glow red, like he’s possessed.

There are some odd touches to the movie as well, like Beverly Bonner as Casey, the hooker whom Duane befriends. One could swear she’s a he on female hormones, until she takes her clothes off and displays child rearing hips, you can’t get those by taking pills. Another moment of oddity is a dream scene where Duane imagines himself running starkers down down the sidewalk in the middle of the night. There’s no real need for the scene, except to add an exploitative element of full frontal male nudity.

Belial, ready to take on the world

Basket Case is an "acquired taste". If you love the outrageous, but not too serious, if you’re fond of a twisted monster movie, if you can stomach atrocious acting and ill-conceived camera direction, then Basket Case is the late night chedder cheese and sour gherkin sandwich for you. Pull the scab off a tinnie, smoke up large with some scoobie-snacks beside you; it’s best to wrap your laughing gear around this one, ‘cos it’s not going to go down easy accompanied by gourmet cuisine, you’ll only suffer indigestion. Basket Case is the ultimate ugly picnic. Bring enough to spill some.

Here's the original trailer:

Basket Case DVD courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment, many thanks!